Bloomin Campers Again

See what I mean about the crap that's been posted here? Who mentioned ethics? Who mentioned not a real business person? Utter crap. You want ethics? DON'T twist things to suit your own arguments.

This is total hyperbole

Have you even read Marx?

HE wouldn't have blushed, he probably would have advocated outlawing Classifieds, Traffic, and relevancy based searches.

Then advertise on that same Classified system and sell a book of his ideas to whoever would buy it.

There is actually a group devoted to "high buildings" and another who are into "Second Life Space Travel" who are trying to set altitude records.

Last time I looked they had achieved some impressive heights, like 1M Km!

In practice it seems that the basic physics engine starts to fail above the 700Km line and things get pretty weird. Making a really nice structure is hard enough that most people won't bother with he extra work.

Oh, it still has comedic value to those of us who don't care one way or another.

Camping on private island or full sim owned by individual/group: Fine. Tis your resources, do what you want with them.

Camping on a sim that is not fully owned by individual/group: Gray line. Keep in mind that other people had the /same/ right to use their land as you (no I do not mean you, Colette.. general 'you'.)

Moral or not, doesn't matter, if you block someone from being able to use their lands due to camping, then maybe it's time to get yourself a private island.

No, when I ran my place, before I got tired of the work and the drama, I had a nice busy place. People liked that only active residents were there and that I didn't take crap from anyone.

You're just saying that because you're jealous!

You Marxist.

I am sure you were both very happy and felt very virtuous.

Too bad it didn't work, could there have been some connection between the two like Phil suggested above?

I love their Movies. Especially "A Night in Vladivostok" and " A Day on the Bread Line".

I like Lenin too, but Georgi was my favorite Beatle.

It worked as long as I wanted it to work. Then I moved on to something that was more fun. Simple. If I had still wanted it to be running, it would be.

Was all good till the Nazis invaded MGM.

People keep saying this like it's a bad thing. Sure, Capitalism had a pretty good run for a while, but that was before the sub-prime mortgage mess.

You are deffinately a piece of work Phil.

Well I am surprised you post again, and even more surprised about the tone of your posting. What I do not understand in the above quote, as well as in some of your other postings, is the use of the words "false morality". Is it so that when other people don't have the same morality as you do, they have a false one? That is very weird.

Well I already told you I did like the textures on your couches and the store looks decent as well. The reasons for not using alts are well mentioned, but don't change your point of view. Fair enough.

Ver true, and several people are seriously concerned about what the population makes of it. Don't forget that the decent RL living you make out of SL, is paid for by those same people you do not give a sh*t about. It is not your fellow business owners buying your low prim furniture, its the mass of people who are in SL to enjot themselves. As soon as the enjoyment disappears because a couple of people make of SL, your customers will disappear as well.

SL offers each business owner tools for normal business competition. No one in this thread complains about those tools. The complaints are about abusing the system for business competition. That is what a lot of people do not want.

Then the fact you think this thread is full of dreamers. Perhaps you're right, but it is a sad thought that one should shut up when nothing can be changed about a situation. No one caring about how things could actually improve, because they cannot change it. Hell even do not vote, since your vote cant change a thing. Sad sad world.

The 2 postings you wrote after I started this reply, along with the way you talk about the people in this thread, shows your feelings about us all pretty well. That is why this is my mast posting in this thread as a reaction to your opinion. A good discussion I love, but as soon as people start bashing their discussion partners, I am out.

Last thing to say, though I doubt I will get through to you. The first postings in this thread showed a strong person in my eyes. Someone who stood for his principles, and had his arguments. Then you started to twist those arguments to make yourself look better as a person helping people. And at last you show what apparantly is your true self. Well, I cannot talk for others, but I really preferred the first Phil i saw.

Regards, Marcel

While I see your point of view, I think you are way, WAY off the mark.

Not only are there ethical considerations here, there are practical ones, too.

There have been a lot of remarks made about how this is done all the time in real life.

Well, there are scuzzy businesses in real life, too.

But there IS no true corollary between real life and this - there just isn't!

But for argument's sake, let's say there is. Even then, a real-life business that is shown to trick its future customers hurts itself.

I was once in a store that was going out of business, and there was a shill there. This shill would go around to people and look over their shoulders and say things like, "Oh, that's adorable! Isn't that the cutest thing!" Well, the people in the store began to catch on. And they left - WITHOUT buying the item they might have before. I know, cause I was one of them.

Anytime the customers catch on to what you are doing to them, the customers will find another store. And that is what is going to happen here.

I went to the store in question. The product line is clever - it markets to a particular niche, the low-prim niche - and the prices are reasonable. The store is well laid-out. The products are fine, if not particularly artistic, or with much variety.

The store would do fine, and be a respectable store, and accumulate the amount of business it rightly deserves, if it were run on its own merits.

The whole thing is brought down, though, by the fact that in SL, we have a culture that recognizes trafficbots as scuzzy. This is the reality in SL, and an astute business person would do well not to overlook that salient fact.

Yes, he can still make more money by employing this tactic, but there is no guarantee that there will continue to be a supply of new players who have not been to other stores, or who don't realize that this place isn't as popular as it appears.

I realize we are all thrown into a mess because we have to try for visibility on the Search, and we are all doing whatever we can to be seen.

But the trafficbot strategy is simply not a good one, because of what it does to the community, and the fact that that would be multiplied if we all did it.

A company has to also be concerned about its good name. And in SL, one of the quickest ways to a bad name is to use hidden trafficbots.

So pragmatically speaking, I don't think this IS a good business decision, in terms of reputation, and most particularly, longevity.

I also don't think any business decision which hurts the environment or the community can possibly be justified just because it works.

IF the goal of all business is simply to make a quick buck by any means whatsoever, then I would agree, this is one way to do it.

But I think anybody who thinks that is really what real business is all about has failed Business 101 themselves, and maybe majored in Cynicism and Personal Gain instead.

And what do these stores typically do? In real life and in SL, they generally function until they are found out and word gets around. Then they close and the owner starts up a new business, under a different name, and sees how long he can go with that.

So yes, you can make short-term financial gain over other people. But what you trade off for it is reputation and longevity.

When I see an otherwise good store like this, run by a reasonable and considerate person, I offer my best advice, which is - stop the scuzzy tactic. You and your store are better than that.

coco

I'll tell you all one thing. Good discussion is vital and we've had some excellent points made on both sides of the issue. However this debate has degenerated into name calling. If you can't make your point without resorting to that, then maybe your point isn't valid anymore.


I'm thinking it's time for a lock. Moderator?

WOW!!! I think that in spite of my better judgement I will have to re-visit the camping thingie for a bit (borring as it is) I will look for a spot that is surrounded by communists, capitalists, nazis, budists, gays, goths, libertarians, green group, satanists...you name it. Just to see what all the hulabaloo is about... WTF!!! this thread is getting boged down with mud slinging...where is Strife when you need him/her?

Strife has hung up their Moderator hat.

Quote:
Anytime the customers catch on to what you are doing to them, the customers will find another store. And that is what is going to happen here.

I certainly hope so. You certainly will deserve it.

Good luck.

No wonder.

So....let's derail the thread into silliness until it gets locked. Who wants to start?

They are in the black.

Over a year ago, I think it was, Philip said in a Town Hall that they were "very close" to having all the investors paid off, and that the game itself was certainly more than profitable. Meaning, if it weren't for having to pay off the investors, SL would be in the black.

Shortly after that - and unfortunately I don't remember who said it or where - they said they had paid them off.

More recently, Philip said SL was "solidly profitable," according to Fortune Magazine:

h ttp://money.cnn.com/2007/12/20/technology/

kirkpatrick_rosedale.fortune/?postversion=2007122105

I have broken that url up with a paragraph - edit: AND a space between the h and the t! I DO wish they would drag these forums out of the primitive ages - so that the url won't cause the page to scroll.

coco

"A Day on the Bread Line" was Federico Fellini's most underrated movie.

I know. The critics at the time hated it it so much, they said he committed Fellinious Assault.

Fellini's "8 1/2" went up to "Nine" on Broadway. I think the remake might need to be "9 1/2" now. Capitalism at work you know.

Actually, LL has gone in and required some landowners to remove, or lower the number of their camping chairs.

So it does help to AR these places, though I don't know how often they will do that.

Again, NOT that I have anything against camping.

I do have something against putting in so many chairs no one else can use the sim, and I especially have something against putting in a bunch of your own zombie bots just to move up the search.

coco

I heard it goes up to eleven.